Regional Hits of 1977

The standard page for 1977 lists the biggest hit songs across the
whole World. This page compares that with the top 20 biggest hits of the year in
North America and Europe. The region index
explains how these results were generated and
the long term trends.

Excuse me, the biggest U.S. hit of 1977 was "You Light Up My Life" by Debby
Boone (on your website is 2nd). On Billboard Hot 100: No. 1 for 10 weeks, 25
weeks in the chart, best selling single of the year (platinum cert.), Oscar
and Grammy Award for Song of the Year winner...

"Hotel California" went to No. 1 only for 1 week, stayed 19 weeks in theBillboard chart...

The Grammy award we use is the Record of the Year (which for 1977 was
"Hotel California"), the winner of Song of the Year was actually
Joe Brooks (for writing it) not Debby Boone (joint winner of course
since "Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)" also won). We don't
use the Song of the Year Grammy since it is specifically focused
on the song, not the particular performance.

In terms of sales during 1977 you are correct, "You Light Up My Life" was a
bigger seller than "Hotel California". However we're trying to measure the
total 'success' of a song (which we admit is a rather vague term). For example
if you were to ask a random person in the street to quote some of the lyrics which song
do you think they'd be more likely to know? Which of these two songs is more likely
to be on a random North American's MP3 player?

The longer lasting impact of the Eagle's song is attested to by the fact that it
is one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 500 (selected in 1983), in 2001
it was one of the RIAA's "Songs of the Century" and, in 2003, was given the
Grammy Hall of Fame award. It was finally awarded Platinum by the RIAA in Feb 2009.

We suspect you would agree that the Eagle's song has had more exposure than Debby
Boone's since, say 1985. The question is has it had enough extra exposure to overcome
the 1977 sales difference. The calculation we use seems to suggest that it has.

So we agree you do have a good point, total sales at the time are important, but
the metric used here indicates that "Hotel California" is more 'important' and
'well known', that's why is is listed top North American song of 1977.